A unified communications (UC) system generally refers to a system that provides users with an integration of communications services. Users typically connect to the UC system through a single client to access the integrated communications services. The integrated communications services may include real-time services, such as instant messaging (IM), presence notifications, telephony, and video conferencing, as well as non-real-time services, such as email, SMS, fax, and voicemail.
Organizations, such as corporations, businesses, educational institutions, and government entities, often employ UC systems to enable internal communication among its members in a uniform and generally cost-efficient manner. In addition, organizations may employ UC systems for communicating with trusted external entities.
Third-party developers offer various UC applications for implementing UC systems. The various applications include Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), IBM Sametime (ST), Google Apps, and Cisco Jabber. Because there is no industry standard regarding UC systems, issues of incompatibility arise when one UC system needs to communicate with a different UC system. In one case, a corporation or business that employs a particular UC system may desire to communicate externally with vendors or other persons who employ different UC system. Or in the case of internal communication, when an organization that employs a particular UC system “A” merges with another organization that employs a UC system “B”, the ability for users on system “A” to communicate with users on system “B” is often desirable. Nevertheless, the incompatibility of the UC systems often makes communication between the UC systems difficult or impossible to implement.
There are numerous organizations running Google Apps while also using Microsoft OCS in a different part of their organization. Situations such as these can be tricky if the organization wants to federate both platforms as well as allow them to share the same domain name for all facets and members of their organization. One example of such an organization is a university running Google Apps for its students and Microsoft OCS for faculty. The university's dual UC platform environment creates a situation in which it cannot maintain a single domain name (university.edu) for all members of the university community. Therefore, there exists a need for a system and method to federate multiple disparate UC platforms so their end users can work together as if they were served by the same UC in the same domain.